CHICAGO — He might be best known as Coach Beard on Apple TV’s “Ted Lasso,” which he also co-writes, but Brendan Hunt spent his formative years in the Chicago and Amsterdam comedy scenes, riding their peak waves of creative excellence and honing his live sketch and improv skills everywhere from ComedySportz to Boom Chicago, Holland’s most improbable live entertainment establishment.

All of those chops underpin not just “Ted Lasso,” but Hunt’s fabulous new solo show at the Steppenwolf Theatre. “The Movement You Need,” a deeply personal, formidably well-structured, deliciously self-aware and exceptionally funny night out, combines a rich comedic banquet of mostly Chicago memories with an exploration of how Hunt used a shared love of the Beatles to come to terms with his lot as a child of divorce and the loss of his late mom, a loving but heavy-drinking bartender on Chicago’s Far North Side.

Hunt has Broadway ambitions for this piece, and why not? But if you grew up here, especially if you grew up Irish Catholic, you’ll have a particularly specific blast as Hunt leads you on a retro journey from Beverley to Lakeview, via such Chicago detritus as public-access television, Clark Street, Cunneen’s Bar in Rogers Park, Kenwood Academy in Hyde Park, VCRs, Phil Jackson and Comiskey in the cold.

Hunt was here for the glory years of the Bulls, as well as the glory days of Chicago sketch and improv — I came to realize more fully while watching this show. I was privileged to witness much of that, including the exchange visits of Boom Chicago with Hunt and the rest of the Ted Lasso crew in the cast, and anything comparable to Hunt’s technical skills within this most Chicago of art forms, hecklers and all, rarely are found today.

Nor do you find his skill at self-deprecation or willingness to reveal his personal neuroses. “For the rest of my life after that, me and mom’s relationship becomes complicated,” he says at one point. “And I know that will shock you, the audience of a one-man show.”

Therein lies another signature aspect of this sometimes dark piece: a self-awareness that cuts through the sentimentality — even though your storyteller with the big familial truths really is yet another of those big, gruff Chicago softies, a line that for me includes the likes of Studs Terkel, Roger Ebert and Jeff Garland, whose early years here were not so different from those of Hunt, although he has more of an edge.

Fans of “Ted Lasso” will already be familiar, sort of, with, err, Coach Beard’s drug-fueled experiences in Amsterdam, but the arc of this show begins with Hunt meeting Paul McCartney in London, gaining access to a rehearsal for a tribute concert by virtue of knowing Jason Sudeikis and being on a hit TV show.

Hunt, being something of a celebrity himself (he calls himself C-list, but I’d go with B), is fully aware that he cannot actually tell McCartney that the music of the Beatles was what got him through his childhood. That music was one of the only ways to communicate with his mom and formed the soundtrack to the mother and son’s happiest moments. Why can’t he? Because Hunt knows that McCartney has heard that several times a day for 50 years, and such revelations are at minimum uninteresting and often invasive for a mega-celebrity. Not that it stops most of us fans from launching into such monologues given the chance.

(Writing a preview of this show and spending time with Hunt in a bar, I watched someone attempt that very thing with Hunt. Most meta, like much in this show, but also affording him a certain wisdom on these matters. As manifested here).

“The Movement You Need” (Beatles fans will recognize the weirdest line of the lyrics to “Hey Jude”) is not just a solo confessional. Hunt and his director, Ashley Rodbro, build in some visual variety, whether that means screening one of Hunt’s public access sketches, cringy, or a digression into a lighting design demo, a nod to Hunt’s Illinois State degree in lighting design (and acting). But it’s mostly an autobiography and a love letter to the music of the Beatles, as squeezed through an oddball Chicago lens, held up by something of a weird, edgy North Side cat and an emotional wreck who first found his calling and, belatedly, the hard-won fame to make this kind of thing possible. Warms the cockles of the heart.

If I were Hunt’s producer, I’d be asking him to add a few more nods to “Ted Lasso” (or at least, soccer) in the piece, even though you get the vibe that it’s the last thing he wants his show to be about. He could suck that up for his audience and still preserve the whole. I’d also trim the Amsterdam trip a notch; therein lies the show’s only sag. And there are a few loose narrative ends, most notably what happens to his dad in his story. His dad seems to disappear, which likely mirrors life, but still.

Of course, artists make choices in biographical shows for a whole variety of reasons, whether in service of the storytelling, to appease those who would prefer to remain anonymous or even self-protection.

What makes “The Movement You Need” so excellent is the performer’s vulnerability. An audience can intuit when a performer is taking a risk, putting everything out there and just trying to get out from under it all. Hunt clearly learned how to do all of that in Chicago and, well, look at him now.

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'THE MOVEMENT YOU NEED'

4 stars

When: Through May 10

Where: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.

Running time: 1:35

Tickets: $55-$105 at 312-335-1650 and steppenwolf.org

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